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and who knows what speeds could be hit Runner’s World are football fans. However, when we see other football fans disrespect our own sport and our athletes (to their face), we cannot stand idly by.
Last week, in response to a tweet about Clemson University cutting its men’s track and field and cross-country programs, a user on Twitter replied:
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That created quite the discussion around the debate of “Who would win in a footrace—sprinters or NFL players?” Some track stars, like reigning world champion hurdler Grant Holloway, Best Jogging Strollers Running Best Jogging Strollers.
The Twitter user Runners World 2023 Calendar, but didn’t do his research before straight-up disrespecting the reigning world champion in the 100m hurdles, who is a favorite for gold at next year’s Tokyo Olympics:
There’s no doubting the athleticism of football players at any level. The sport requires a mix of strength, speed, and agility to chase down speedy running backs and wide receivers or avoid muscly linebackers.
And we love it when players proudly put their speed on display, whether that’s in a game or not. We’ve all seen impressive kickoff returns from DeSean Jackson and Devin Hester. Just a few weeks ago, Seahawks wide receiver How Henry Ruggs III Trained for the 40-Yard Dash. Published: Nov 12, 2020 got into the conversation last summer in the 40-yard dash competition with former Olympic long jumper Marquise Goodwin taking home $1 million.
However, when it comes to pure speed, you can’t look any further than Olympic sprinters and hurdlers. It’s not even a contest (and no disrespect to you, Tyreek Hill, and not just because I need you to deliver for my fantasy team this week). Put any Olympic-level sprinter on the line against NFL players for a 100-meter dash, and the sprinter will win every time. Usain Bolt, after he officially retired from both his sprinting and Australian pro soccer careers, and stood up for themselves of 4.22 seconds in a track suit—like an actual, casual track suit.
In all honesty, it is hard to compare the sports. Put football pads on a sprinter, and speed goes down. Take off the pads of a football player and give him some track-specific training, tied the NFL Combine 40-yard dash record.
Now, we can understand some confusion if Twitter-user Jack was comparing sprinters to players like Hill, Donte Jackson, or Alvin Kamara. But the audacity to say that Giants QB Daniel Jones—a quarterback who couldn’t even run in the open field without falling over two weeks ago (see below)—is faster than Olympic sprinters is simply lunacy. The former Duke Blue Devil definitely has some wheels out of college. He dropped a 4.82-second 40 times in 2019. He is a world-class athlete.
But, as we see below, he is not a world-class runner.
While we admire passion for the game, Jack, we do not tolerate insulting nonsense to our athletes and our sport. If anything, we ask that you, as a self-proclaimed “NFL Statistics Analyst” will actually look at the data and see that very few NFLers come close to Olympic speed, and that especially includes Daniel Jones.
Published: Nov 12, 2020 Runner’s World and Bicycling, and he specializes in writing and editing human interest pieces while also covering health, wellness, gear, and fitness for the brand. His work has previously been published in Men’s Health.
